To Wear His Ring Again (5 page)

‘Come on,' Ryan called from the doorway. He frowned when he saw how pale Isobel had gone. ‘Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost.' He glanced at her phone as she dropped it into her bag. ‘You haven't had any more nuisance calls, have you?'

It wouldn't be fair to share her worries about the stalker with Ryan tonight, when he was clearly ecstatic that his girlfriend had agreed to marry him. There was probably nothing to worry about anyway. She was being silly to let the mysterious David bother her.

She shrugged. ‘I told you, I've just got a bit of stage fright, that's all,' she said as they took the lift down to the ground floor of the hotel. ‘In a strange way I find it more daunting to perform in front of an audience of five hundred guests who paid a fortune for tickets, than at an arena in front of thousands of fans.'

Keen to take her mind away from the unsettling phone call, she changed the subject. ‘Are you and Emily going to announce your engagement tonight?'

‘No, I only proposed yesterday, and she's gone to her parents' country estate in Suffolk to break the news to them first.' As they walked backstage to wait until it was time for the band's performance Ryan caught hold of Isobel's hand. ‘Thanks for helping me and Emily to keep our relationship out of the media. The speculation that you and I are romantically involved has allowed Emily to stay out of the limelight.'

They were interrupted by one of the sound technicians. ‘You're on in two minutes, guys and girls. Do you want to check your mic, Izzy?'

As the host for the evening walked onto the stage to introduce the Stone Ladies, Isobel peeped through a gap in the curtains and felt a sickening sensation in the pit of her stomach. The glare of the footlights meant that it was impossible for her to see the audience clearly, but even if she could make out people's faces she would not recognise David. He had told her in one of his phone calls that they had met after a Stone Ladies concert and she had given him her autograph, but since the band had become famous Isobel had met hundreds of fans and signed her autograph countless times. She assumed David must have asked her to write ‘to my darling'—fans often made strange requests—but she had no recollection of him.

Was he out there in the audience? She shivered as she remembered his most recent phone call. What had he meant when he'd said that they were destined to be together for ever? Was it her overactive imagination, or had there been something vaguely threatening in his words?'

The curtains were opening and there were cheers from the audience, but Isobel's feet felt as though they were rooted to the spot. The urge to run from the stage was so strong that she half turned and bumped into Ryan, who was standing behind her.

‘Forget everything else and just focus on the music,' he murmured. ‘Pretend we're kids again, four friends pretending to be rock stars in Eckerton village hall.'

Ryan's words calmed her and she looked around at Carly and Ben and returned their smiles. During her marriage, she had tried to explain to Constantin that the band had become her family who gave her the love and affection that she hadn't received from her father. After she had lost her baby, it had been her closest friends who had supported her through the darkest days of her life because Constantin had refused to talk about what had happened.

Taking a deep breath, she walked out onto the stage and launched into a song that had recently been a number-one hit in the charts. There was applause from the audience, but Isobel blocked out everything else and sank into the music. Ever since she had been a small child and had picked out simple tunes on her mother's piano, music had been her great love, her joy and her solace when she had needed an outlet for her emotions.

* * *

‘...Constantin?'

The sound of his name intruded on Constantin's thoughts, and he tore his eyes away from the unedifying spectacle of his wife dancing with her
very
good friend, Ryan Fellows. A nerve flickered in his jaw, but a lifetime of disguising his true emotions came to his rescue and he smiled smoothly at the willowy blonde at his side, who was staring at him accusingly.

‘I'm sure you haven't been listening to me!'

Lying was pointless. The woman—Ginny? Jenny? he'd already forgotten her name—had sat next to him during dinner and seemed to think that she had exclusive rights to his attention for the rest of the evening. But ignoring her had been rude. He gave an apologetic shrug of his shoulders. ‘Forgive me. I have things on my mind and I'm afraid I am not an attentive companion tonight. But I'm sure there are many other men here who would enjoy meeting you,' he murmured.

The blonde finally took the hint and flounced away. Constantin watched the indignant sway of her bottom clad in tight red satin for all of two seconds, before his eyes were drawn back to the dance floor and Isobel.

Listening to her singing earlier in the evening, he had been struck anew by the liquid quality of her voice, and he had been reminded of a crystal-clear stream tumbling softly over pebbles. He had never understood when she had said that music was part of her. But watching her on the stage tonight, he'd realised that she sang from her heart, from the depths of her soul, and he had felt an inexplicable ache in his chest, a longing for something that might have been, if he had been a different man.

His gaze narrowed on the man who was dancing with Isobel. Constantin presumed that women found the long-haired guitarist attractive. Certainly Fellows and Isobel made a striking couple. Were they already lovers or would she at least have the decency to wait until she was free of her marriage before taking another man to her bed? Violent rage simmered in his gut. The potency of his jealousy terrified him, but he could not control it
.

Was this how his father had felt when he had watched his young second wife laughing with her friends
?
Had Franco De Severino been overcome by murderous rage when he and Lorena had argued on the balcony that fateful day
?

Sweat beaded on Constantin's brow. He knew he should not have accepted the invitation to tonight's event once he'd learned that the Stone Ladies would be attending. His brain told him he should get out of there,
fast
, but his feet were already carrying him swiftly across the dance floor in Isobel's direction.

* * *

Was David somewhere in the ballroom watching her? Isobel could not dismiss the thought as her mind replayed the stalker's unnerving phone call. During the Stone Ladies' performance she had managed to forget about him, but her tension had returned when she'd left the stage and joined the party guests. She told herself she was overreacting. The stalker had not actually threatened to harm her. But she could not shake off her feeling of unease, and she had stayed close to Ryan all evening.

‘Don't look,' he murmured in her ear as he guided her around the dance floor, ‘but an extremely dangerous-looking man is heading our way.'

Isobel's heart lurched. ‘What do you mean? What man?' Was David going to reveal himself? She gripped Ryan's arm.

‘It's Constantin, and I get the distinct impression that he'd like to tear me limb from limb. I thought you said it was all over between the two of you.'

‘It is...' The words died on Isobel's lips as she felt a heavy hand on her shoulder and she was spun round to find Constantin's darkly handsome face looming above her. The fear she'd felt when she had believed she was going to be confronted by the man who had been terrorising her with phone calls was replaced by a different kind of tension as Constantin stepped between her and Ryan.

‘Excuse me, Fellows,' he drawled in a deceptively soft voice that resonated with menace. ‘It's my turn to dance with my wife.'

Ryan looked uncertain. ‘Is that okay with you, Izzy?'

It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she would rather walk over hot coals than dance with Constantin, but the determined gleam in her husband's eyes made her swallow her words. She did not want to cause a scene, especially as she knew that members of the press were at the party and would love to report a fracas on the dance floor. Anyway, she had no time to appeal to Ryan for help because Constantin clamped his hands on her waist and whisked her away.

‘What the hell are you playing at?' she demanded, but the asperity in her voice was muffled as he slid his arms around her and drew her towards him so that her face was pressed against his chest. Beneath his crisp white shirt she could see the shadow of his dark chest hairs, and the heat from his body and the spicy scent of his aftershave intoxicated her senses. It had to be at this moment that the upbeat disco music changed to a slow ballad, she thought despairingly.

She tilted her head so that she could look at him. ‘Why are you here?'

‘I accepted an invitation to support the fund-raising event for a worthwhile charity.' His eyes met hers, and the glitter in his cobalt gaze sent molten heat surging through Isobel's veins. ‘I also knew that you would be here,' he admitted. ‘Your visit last week made me re-evaluate our situation and I concluded that you were right when you pointed out that there were many good things about our relationship.

She stared at him in confusion. ‘So, what are you saying?'

‘I'm saying that I've changed my mind about the divorce. I think we should give our marriage another chance.'

Isobel's shock gave way to anger. ‘Just like that, you've
changed your mind
? You've got a nerve, Constantin.' It was typical of Constantin not to give an explanation but to expect her to simply accept his decision, and no doubt welcome him back into her life with open arms. ‘Last week you were adamant that we should divorce. What happened that brought about this miraculous change of heart?' she asked sarcastically.

As she'd climbed into a taxi and driven away from the house in Grosvenor Square a week ago, she had vowed that her tears were the last she would shed over Constantin, and a clean break was the only sensible thing to do.

Suddenly it was all too much: the romantic music, the way Constantin was holding her close to his body so that she could feel the steady beat of his heart beneath his ribcage and—she caught her breath as he pressed his hand into the small of her back—the hard ridge of his arousal jabbing into her thigh.

Her brain was sending out an urgent warning that she must step away from him, but desire was unfurling in the pit of her stomach and she was trapped by the sensual heat in his eyes as he bent his head towards her.

‘This happened, Isabella,' he whispered against her lips. ‘We are both prisoners of the incredible passion that exists between us—that has always existed since the moment we first set eyes on each other. When we met last week it was all we could do not to tear each other's clothes off. You weren't the only one to imagine making love on the gym mat,' he drawled in an amused voice as she opened her mouth to deny the erotic images that had crowded her mind when she had watched him working out.

‘I don't want...' she began desperately, but the rest of her words were crushed beneath his mouth.

‘Yes,
bella
, you do. And so do I,' Constantin told her firmly, and proceeded to demonstrate his mastery with a kiss that plumbed the depths of her soul as he took without mercy and demanded a response that Isobel was unable to deny him.

CHAPTER FOUR

I
T
HAD
BEEN
so long since Constantin had held her in his arms and kissed her with mind-blowing passion. The years of heartache fell away and Isobel trembled as he increased the pressure of his lips on hers, evoking a hunger inside her that had lain dormant until he had reawakened her desire with one look from his glittering blue eyes. A tiny part of her mind warned that she must resist the wanton warmth flooding through her body, but as Constantin pulled her even closer so that she could feel the hardness of his arousal press against her pelvis she gave up the fight with herself and succumbed to his sensual demands.

The voices of the party guests, the clink of glasses, faded, and there was only the music and the man who retained the key to her heart. She was barely aware of her feet touching the floor as Constantin swept her around the dance floor. His mouth did not leave hers, but the tenor of his kiss altered and became so sweetly beguiling that tears filled her eyes. She felt as if she had come home after a long journey, and as he deepened the kiss to something that was flagrantly sensual the ache of loneliness in her heart eased.

‘Get a room!' Laughter followed the raucous comment, and Isobel was catapulted back to reality. She snatched her mouth from Constantin's and looked around wildly, horrified to find that they were the only couple on the dance floor, and they were being observed by an avid audience. The flash of a camera bulb brought home to her just what a fool she had been.

‘The press are going to love this,' she muttered. She shot Constantin a sharp glance and felt infuriated by his amused expression. ‘Pictures of us will be in the newspapers tomorrow. It won't take journalists long to discover that we are married, and they'll be curious to know why we've lived apart for the last two years.'

He shrugged. ‘Why is that a problem? We'll simply explain that our relationship went through a difficult patch, but now we are back together.'

‘But we're not!' Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘You set me up, didn't you? You deliberately made a...a public spectacle of us because for some reason you've suddenly decided that we should be reconciled.' She touched her mouth with shaking fingers and cringed when she felt its swollen contours. Why on earth had she allowed Constantin to kiss her, to
ravish
her, in such a public display?

Isobel's words came uncomfortably close to the truth for Constantin. His jaw hardened. ‘I didn't hear you object when I kissed you,
cara
.'

Sickening shame swept through her at his soft taunt. Without another word she spun round and marched off the dance floor, but her high heels and long dress hampered her progress and Constantin's long stride easily kept pace with her as she walked out of the ballroom.

‘Go away,' she demanded in a fierce undertone as she crossed the lobby. She was desperate to escape the curious glances of the other guests, and as she hurried down the hotel steps she prayed for a taxi to appear.

‘My car is over there.' Constantin nodded towards the sports car parked a little way down the street. ‘I'll drive you home.'

‘I'd rather wait for a taxi.' She was furious with him, but even more so with herself for allowing him to think she was a pushover. The bitter truth was that she did not dare risk being alone with him, she acknowledged.

The glare of a flashbulb momentarily blinded her, and her heart sank as a reporter whom she recognised from one of the tabloids thrust a microphone at her. ‘Izzy, what's the story about you and Constantin De Severino?' The reporter looked curiously at Constantin. ‘Have you split with Ryan Fellows, and, if so, what does it mean for the future of the Stone Ladies?'

How was it that a taxi never appeared when you wanted one? she thought, frustrated.

‘Do you want to stand here and talk to this jerk, or do you want to go home?' Constantin spoke in her ear.

The arrival of two more reporters decided the matter for her and she quickly followed him over to his car and slid into the passenger seat. Seconds later, the powerful engine roared into life and Constantin accelerated away from the kerb.

‘Is your address still the apartment block near Tower Bridge?' When she had left him, Constantin had offered to buy her a place of her own to live, but stubborn Isobel had refused his help and had proudly told him that she was able to pay for a flat with money she had earned from the Stone Ladies' first hit record. She had often accused him of being remote and cold during their marriage, but whenever he
had
tried to build bridges, her prickly independence had come to the fore and she had seemed reluctant to accept anything from him.

Isobel gave a nod of confirmation. She looked over her shoulder as a camera flashbulb shone through the car's rear window. ‘See what you've done?' she rounded on him angrily. ‘Our so-called relationship is going to feature in all the gossip columns. I'll have to warn Ryan,' she muttered. ‘It might make things awkward.'

Constantin frowned. ‘You mean it will be awkward when the press report that you are married to me at the same time as you've been carrying on with Fellows? My heart bleeds for you
, cara
,' he said sarcastically.

‘I haven't been
carrying on
with Ryan. I've told you a hundred times that he and I are just friends.'

‘You have never denied in interviews that the two of you are having an affair.' Constantin's hands tightened on the steering wheel as he recalled how Isobel had been glued to the guitarist's side at the party. ‘It's obvious that you have a close relationship with him.'

Isobel's temper boiled over and she threw her hands up in the air in a gesture of angry frustration. ‘
Yes
, I admit I'm close to him. I love Ryan—but as a brother, not a lover. And he...he has tried to fill the place of the brother I lost.' She could not control the tremor in her voice.

Constantin shot her a puzzled look. ‘I didn't know you had a brother. You've never spoken of him before. Your parents made no mention that they had a son when we visited them in Derbyshire.'

Isobel bit her lip as she remembered the one and only occasion that Constantin had met her parents. They hadn't attended the wedding because her father had been too unwell to travel to London. After she and Constantin had returned from their honeymoon, they had driven through the picturesque Peak District, before arriving at the far less attractive village of Eckerton, where rows of ugly terraced miners' cottages stood in the shadow of the abandoned colliery.

Her mother had been overawed by Constantin and kept up a stream of nervous chatter as she had served tea from her best china. Her father had been his usual, dour self and had barely uttered a word. Looking around the tiny sitting room, with its threadbare carpet and old furniture, Isobel had shuddered to imagine what Constantin had made of her childhood home and her unwelcoming father. The visit had emphasised the huge social divide between her and the enigmatic Italian aristocrat she had married.

‘They never speak of Simon. He died in an accident when he was fourteen and my father wouldn't allow my mother or me to mention his name, or even have photos of him on the wall. I suppose it was Dad's way of dealing with the tragedy of losing his son. You dealt with the loss of our baby in the same way, by refusing to talk about Arianna.' Her voice was husky with emotions that she was struggling to suppress.

A nerve flickered in Constantin's jaw, but he ignored her jibe. ‘What happened to your brother?'

‘It was a scorching hot summer's day and Simon and a group of his friends decided to swim in the reservoir near to where we lived. Actually, it was Ryan who suggested it and he has never forgiven himself. My brother was a daredevil, and while some of the boys went into the water and stayed close to the bank, Simon swam out of his depth. It's thought that he had an attack of cramp. Ryan said that he was fine one minute but then he suddenly started shouting for help. By the time Ryan had swum out to him, Simon had disappeared below the surface. Somehow Ryan managed to grab hold of him and drag him back to the shore. He tried to resuscitate him, but he was unable to save him...and Simon died.'

It was difficult to talk past the lump in her throat. ‘Afterwards, Ryan became severely depressed. He felt guilty that Simon had swum in the reservoir. But what happened wasn't Ryan's fault. Simon always pushed the boundaries, and it was typical of him to have swum out of his depth. I didn't blame Ryan. He and my brother were best friends and Simon's death forged a bond between us that will always remain. But friendship is
all
there is between me and Ryan. He is in love with his girlfriend and he and Emily are planning to get married.'

‘If that's true, why didn't the pair of you scotch the rumours of an affair?'

She shrugged. ‘We told the truth when we said that we are good friends. The press decided that there must be more to our relationship, and we didn't deny the rumours because, while attention was on us, it allowed Ryan's girlfriend to escape the media's interest.' Isobel hesitated. ‘I guess it is okay to tell you, as Ryan is going to make a public announcement in the next day or so. Emily's father is a well-known politician and a member of the government. If it had become known that Ryan was dating her, they would have been constantly followed by the paparazzi.'

‘So, being a loyal friend, you allowed the speculation about your relationship with Fellows to continue,' Constantin said grimly. ‘You did not care if I heard the rumours that my wife was involved with another man. Didn't you think you owed
me,
your husband, your loyalty?'

‘Not when hardly a week went by without a picture of you with a different beautiful woman in the newspapers. How dare you accuse me of disloyalty when you paraded the members of your...your
harem
in public?'

Isobel jerked her eyes from him and stared out of the car window, breathing hard. She was not going to admit how hurt she had felt when she'd seen pictures of Constantin with other women. If she was scrupulously honest with herself, she had not denied to the press the rumours of an affair with Ryan because she had hoped that Constantin would realise that she wasn't pining for him.

The simmering tension inside the car stretched her nerves to snapping point, and she felt relieved when he parked outside her apartment building.

‘Thanks for the lift.' She glanced at his handsome profile and bit her lip. ‘I don't understand why you said you've changed your mind about the divorce. Separating permanently is the only sensible thing to do. Our marriage is well and truly over. The truth is that it would have been better if we had never met,' she said in a low tone.

His head shot round and his blue eyes glittered fiercely. ‘You don't mean that.'

If they had never met, she would never have held her tiny baby girl in her arms. Arianna had never lived in the world, but she lived on in Isobel's heart.

‘We were good together.' Constantin's husky accent caused her stomach muscles to contract.

‘In bed!' She gave a hollow laugh. ‘But marriage has to have more than sex for it to work. Trust, for instance. You resented my friendships with the other members of the band. That's clear from the way you were so ready to believe I was having an affair with Ryan. Sometimes I had the feeling that you wished you could lock me away in a tower, away from all other human contact.' Her voice shook. ‘And yet you were so remote and cold towards me that you can hardly blame me for wanting to be with my friends.'

An image flashed into Constantin's mind of his father and stepmother, and inside his head he heard Lorena's impassioned cry.

I feel smothered, Franco. You're jealous of my friends, and of any man I happen to glance at. You are even jealous of your own son!

Dio!
Had Isobel felt smothered by
him,
just as Lorena had by his father? He had tried to fight his possessive feelings and the dark jealousy that he feared he had inherited from his father, but in doing so he had come across as cold and uncaring.

Isobel got out of the car and Constantin watched her walk towards the front door of the apartment building. She was exquisitely desirable in her gold dress that clung to her slender figure. ‘Our marriage is well and truly over,' she had insisted. He frowned as he thought of his uncle's threat to appoint his cousin Maurio as Chairman of DSE.

Nothing was going to stop him from claiming the position that was rightfully his.

Growling a curse, he flung open the car door and strode after his wife.

He caught up with her as she stood on the top step and searched in her bag for her door key. ‘Invite me in, Isabella, so that we can talk.'

‘We have nothing to talk about.' Isobel located her key in the bottom of her bag and gripped it tightly. Her composure was near to breaking point, and she was desperate to reach her flat before she did something stupid like fling her arms around Constantin and beg him to hold her close and never let her go. Her eyes were drawn to his, and the sensual heat in his gaze made her tremble. ‘We're no good for each other,' she whispered.

‘Not true,
tesorino
.'

His use of the affectionate term that he had often spoken to her at the beginning of their marriage undermined her defences, and she was unprepared when he slid his arm around her waist and pulled her towards him.

His dark head descended and he claimed her lips, kissing her with a fiery passion that lit a flame inside Isobel.
This
had always been good for both of them, she acknowledged. Sex—white-hot and wickedly erotic! She had been inexperienced when she had met Constantin but he had discovered her secret desires and had used his knowledge mercilessly to take her repeatedly to a sensual nirvana.